Think Like a Teacher

Creating is very personal — close to the soul and perilously self-revealing. Those who are moderately successful at creating, people like published writers, performance musicians, and visual artists who are not starving, are generally articulate when asked how they go about their work. I have found some marvelous videos and interviews where people talk about how they go about painting or writing. Artist Kimberly Brooks spells out 8 stages to her painting process, concluding with:

(8) Resolution. Very elusive. The composer Aaron Copland said he didn’t finish compositions so much as abandon them. When it’s finally over, it feels like a whole relationship has ended. And then the anticipated rush of doing it all over begins again. [I love the concept of “abandoning” works at the end. Though cruel, it also implies that the work has a separate life of its own by this time.]

My bookshelves and Diigo account house an ever-growing collection of writers’ and artists’ discussions on how they create. I even have a few scientific analyses from adventurous experimenters explaining how innovations occurred in their lab.  What I notice is that those who are willing to bare their process are already successful and therefore can talk about creating from behind a safe curtain  labeled “success.”

If I were to ask, say — a teacher– how he/she creates things, I  wouldn’t expect to hear as much. Most adults will pooh-pooh the idea that they are ever creative, much less open up about how it happens (if it happens). Having lived for decades in a culture where someone else defines creative success, usually by some sort of juried process, we adults assume the jury knows what they are talking about. So we only talk about our own creativity after receiving the jury’s blessing.

Enter the world of YouTube, web 2.0 tools, and public commenting. Enter a generation (or two or three) willing to spill their guts and show their mental underwear on Facebook. Will this generation be more willing to talk about their own creative process after the “success” of publishing/performing/exhibiting wherever and whenever they want?  Do they even view their electronically facilitated play as creative process? Are they/we driven to carry creative work through the stages that Kimberly Brooks and others describe? Or is a dropping left on the surface of the web just that:  an abandoned, stillborn product? Are those who create with the toys of the web driven to return again and again, refining, remixing, even storehousing their discarded scraps for use another time? Can these tools be as powerful as any paint, word, or engineering lab? I think so.  But I believe we need the creators to be aware of and talk about their process to reach a higher level, a sort of creative self-actualization (ugh, another old theory, you say…)

I would love to work with some teachers and their students to find out more about creative process among today’s middle and high school kids. But first we need the teachers to recognize creative process in themselves. As I said in a recent post,

Teaching is a blessedly creative process, if we allow it to be. We sculpt a product — a plan for learning. We try it, revise it, tear it apart, remix its pieces, and try it again.

Talk about it. I dare you to ask your colleagues in the faculty room about their latest creative accomplishment.

A twenty-something former student of mine recently shared with incredulous delight that she “gets paid to think.” Her obvious enjoyment of going to work every day and reading, writing, and talking about ideas is what made her a teacher’s dream. But her words reveal more than personal attributes or wise career choice. She describes a world where thinking is important enough to pay for.  In our supply and demand world, what better foundation for a new vision of education?

Some education visionaries — like Will Richardson — hold out hope that education reform will lead to a time when

…the emphasis will turn back to the learning process, not the knowing process. And while I don’t think schools go away in the interaction, the “new normal” will be a focus on personalization not standardization, where we focus more on developing learners, not knowers…

I wonder whether using the market driven model where people “get paid to think,” could sway the media, the public, and policy makers to push the pendulum in a direction where students are drivers of learning. It is an interesting “what if” to play with.

I wonder how many people would tell you they get paid to think. Do we even look at our roles in terms of thinking? I think not. I suspect if you polled Americans about whether they get paid to think, most would say no. Thinking gets a bad rap in our society. It is seen as the antithesis of doing or as something painful to be avoided. We are not an intellectual society, but we are swayed by money. Perhaps the first campaign to reform education is one where we get the word out. Maybe it should be a Facebook gadget:

I get paid to think.

Why is it that some people can articulately describe and actually facilitate their personal creative process while others have no idea how they go about “making” things? You might think just “letting ideas happen,” sparks the highest level of creativity:  serendipitous fireworks that splash across our mental and aesthetic skyline. I would propose that those who pause to notice, name, and massage their personal creative process — a seemingly UNcreative thing to do– are the most prolific artists, writers, and thinkers.

Analyzing how a successful project evolves requires a very sophisticated level of metacognition, a true intrapersonal intelligence. Taking note of the circumstances that help you generate ideas or pluck the best from a messy pile of possibilities will help you “set up” similar circumstances the next time you seek to complete a project.It seems counterintuitive that those we call “creative” people actually do this. We think of artists and writers as somewhat random — or a little crazy. Artists, writers, and deep thinkers may not call it metacognition, but they pay attention, tuned in with a powerful intrapersonal awareness, to how they work. Their studios or workspaces may seem disorganized, but there is method to their madness, and they KNOW that method. Those less aware among us may founder when asked to “be creative,”  not because we lack ideas, but because we don’t know enough about how our own creative process works to move from inspiration to fruition.

In about two months, I have a presentation about creative process at ISTE2011. Right now, I am struggling with exactly the process I propose to speak about. I need to manage my own creative process, putting this presentation together on a deadline and subject to the accountability of my own presentation proposal.  I know that allowing subliminal incubation time with a looming deadline has always worked for me. Mulling questions in the background as I swim, walk, work, drive, and do other things has always helped me reach an AHA! moment when ideas explode to the forefront. At that moment, I know how to put the presentation or quilt or blog post or article together. But it is frightening to manage this need for a looming deadline and time for incubation when I have so many other tasks at hand, not the least of which involves relaunching a huge web site on exactly the same timeline as the presentation! And I wonder: Is it better to work up against pressure and a looming deadline or force ahead now to be overprepared and possibly stale? Which makes for the most creative, vital product? How much should my own messy creative process be shared as part of a preso on creative process? Obviously, I am still at the messy stage right now.  So I will step back to look for the learning that can come from this moment.

I think creative process matters for all of us, even those who call themselves “just teachers.” Teaching is a blessedly creative process, if we allow it to be. We sculpt a product — a plan for learning. We try it, revise it, tear it apart, remix its pieces, and try it again.  I wonder how many teachers experience teaching this way? I can’t imagine teaching any other way, but it is all I have ever known.

I recently combed through thousands of pages on TeachersFirst‘s servers in preparation for the launch of TeachersFirst 3.0. I whirled as thirteen years of teaching with technology rewound in a few clicks. Yes, we have revised our site several times since 1998, but we have never cleaned out the attic of unused items. As points of perspective, 1998 was the year TeachersFirst launched. It was also the year of Titanic (the movie) and the introduction of Viagra. Today’s younger teachers were still in elementary school. If you were a teacher then, you likely had to walk to the school library or designated classrooms to even find a computer. Fortunate schools had one projection device that sat atop an overhead projector to “show” the computer on a screen. Do you remember?

As I clicked through TeachersFirst’s digital attic, I laughed aloud at a 1998 TeachersFirst tutorial on Netscape, complete with images and explanations of what a “Back” button does.  I unearthed a page that explained “plug ins” (not the kind that deliver air freshener). I blew digital dust off technology tips about “floppies” and  warnings from the days before school web filtering, recalling the humble roots of the iPad and IWB.  A very thorough 2001 TeachersFirst professional module explained a new concept in teaching: the webquest. Of course, there were no user-friendly, web-based tools to create or share a webquest online, so teachers placed the instructions and links in Word documents or learned to write html code and host it on their Tripod or AOL member web page. Only the adventurous teacher-geeks survived that trial by ftp.

Then there were TeachersFirst traffic statistic pages. Like a box of old snapshots,  these pages showed how many teachers accessed how many “page views” on TeachersFirst during September, 2003: a mere 143,000 per month in those days, and zero percent of them were from countries outside the U.S. What about today, you ask? Try millions of pages viewed per month from over 70 countries with users and members visiting TeachersFirst. Everyone is a web adventurer now. Indeed, the web itself ceased being an adventure many years ago.

Where were you thirteen years ago this month? Did you use the Internet? My classroom was the first in my school to hijack one of the extra office phone lines and connect to the Internet via a dial-up modem– I believe in 1995 or so. The cable ran all the way down the hall, strung behind the panels of the dropped ceiling during a weekend visit by my geeky friend, the computer teacher, with his handy roll of telephone wire. If the office picked up Line 4 during our online session, we were unceremoniously thrown off. I would leap to the computer before the kids could hear what the principal was saying to the person on the other end of the call.

So I should not have been surprised to find several generations of digital treasures in TeachersFirst’s attic. But we should all be impressed at how far teachers — and the world– have come in 13 years.  I gleefully tossed many, many old and unused pages to the “permanently delete” list as we decided what was worth revising and keeping. I can only hope that the next few years will see at least as much change in the power of teaching and learning thanks to the web.

In just a few weeks, we will be unveiling TeachersFirst 3.0. I hope you will find it as fresh and exciting as the Internet was back in 1998, but without the challenges!

I watched Deputy United States Trade Representative John Verneau speak this week at the Lou Frey Institute on the subject of U.S./China relations. His analysis of the interdependent economics of the two countries was well articulated and directed, in part, at the role of schools. We all hear about the need to prepare our students for a global economy, fostering broad awareness and the ability to function competitively among their peers worldwide. Mr. Verneau made one point in particular that could help all — teachers, parents, and students — to better focus this vision. He pointed out that the innovation we need to nourish can be boiled down to problem solving. Every career in this interdependent world is problem solving. The differences between career choices simply depend upon the kind of problems you like to solve.

What kind of problems do you like to solve?

I am certain no one ever asked me that question when I was in school, and I don’t think I have ever asked my students or my own children a career question in that way. I would venture a guess that few of us, as teachers, ever ask kids what kinds of problems they like to solve. We just hand out the problems.  Yes, we try to make the problems “real” or meaningful by connecting them to something authentic, and we have an obligation to present problems related to our assigned curriculum. But it would not take much to go a step further and ask students, “What kinds of problems intrigue you?” “What do you like figuring out?” “Name a problem you felt good about fixing.”

Most kids don’t know their strengths. Some may have overinflated self-concepts because exuberant adults around them praise everything they do. Others never hear any positive comments. We all know a student or two who has come back to say that one long-forgotten comment we made had a huge impact on what that student did with his/her life. Asking “What’s YOUR problem (of choice)” could be the pivotal comment for every student.

The child who enjoys solving problems among friends may have great interpersonal intelligence and be well suited to a career solving mysteries of human relationship. The girl who figures out how to use waxed paper to make her bike stop squeaking may be destined to work with materials engineering. The boy who takes hours to pick out the song he likes on the piano solves problems with pitch and rhythm and may be a musician — or a designer of sound equipment.  But we may never have asked them what problems they like to solve or what problems they voluntarily spend hours on when they are not at school solving OUR problems. Adults rarely stop to analyze the types of problems posed by our own careers or the careers/problems we know less about. Since our kids will inevitably change careers over and over, the most important question we want them to answer- loud and strong — is:

What kinds of problems do you like to solve?

We never have enough time to “teach” about careers (an old-fashioned concept, when you consider how many times people change careers, anyway).  Typically, career discussions are relegated to a very 20th century aptitude test or a ninth grade guidance class. As teachers, we could do more for our students’ long term preparedness than most curriculum does simply by asking them:

What’s YOUR problem (of choice)?

I have been thinking a lot lately about why teachers become teachers. I know the media and the teacher-bashers have it all wrong. It’s not all about wanting summers off or a cushy job. Three posts/articles got my attention this week on the related topics of teacher respect and recruitment. An April Fool’s “memo” from a school administrator mentioned Finland’s teacher education programs that skim la creme de la creme to enter teacher preparation after two years of college performance. This would imply that Finns choose teaching because it is a place to work among very smart, well-prepared people. A New York Times Op Ed described a writer’s personal experience with teachers, describing an experience and appreciation similar to my own. Perhaps that writer’s teachers chose teaching because they could encourage and challenge students beyond where they went themselves. A series of suggestions from “debaters” also in the Times tout different strategies for raising the status of teachers. These various suggestions imply that money, autonomy, professional growth, supply and demand, and various other factors drive the choices of 18 to 22 year olds to consider teaching.

We should be asking good teachers the question: Why did you choose teaching?  To reach a consensus of what a good teacher is for this exercise,  I would propose using teacher-leaders respected by a broad spectrum of their peers and/or credited by former students as having had profound impact — in both public and private teaching settings. I have some ideas of what they might say, though we know the responses would vary each decade since the 1960s and 1970s, when opportunities for women changed dramatically. Some responses I suspect we would hear:

• I did well in school, so I like being around schools.
• My teachers were nice to me, and I liked the idea of paying it forward.
• I liked the idea of doing something a little different every day.
• I grew up in a family of teachers.
• A teacher changed my life.
• I thought that was what a smart girl was supposed to do.
• Teaching was the only thing I knew you could do if you loved (fill in the subject here).
• I was more comfortable around kids than adults.
• I love learning new things.
• Teachers get to be creative.
• I couldn’t afford to be a writer/artist, so I decided to teach.
• I always wanted to be a coach, and you have to teach to coach.
• I love to read.
• It feels good to teach people things.
• I like words and can explain anything.
• I like the way a kid looks at me when he “gets it.”
• Teachers get to laugh and make kids laugh.
• add your teacher story starter here

What is probably not on the list:

• I like measuring learning by tests.
• I like using cold, hard data to describe my work.
• I like following someone else’s script.
• I like going to meetings.
• I like having people write letters to the editor about how lazy I am.
• I like being lazy.
• I like being in the middle of domestic disputes.
• I like the thrill of violence.
• add your own unlikely response here

If you are a good teacher or know one, please ask him/her this question and share the responses — and NOT responses — here. You can put “anonymous” as your name. Or just pass the question along on Twitter or Facebook or any other way, tagging it #whyteach. Maybe someone will notice that it’s not all about summer vacations.

Jennifer Northrup’s post about a visit to her media center by teachers-to-be (T2B) raises very important questions about today’s teacher ed programs:

…the discussions of the day really made me wonder if pre-service teacher education is neglecting to prepare students for the role of technology in the classroom. Is it fair to say that we have to hope that these students have a cooperating teacher that utilizes technology in the classroom or that they will be forced to learn it on their own in the end?

My short answer: NO. It is not fair to simply hope a cooperating teacher will have time/expertise/motivation/experience with technology to make this a part of student teaching.  I know from sharing TeachersFirst with T2B in OK2ask sessions that the T2B desperately want to know what to do with technology long before student teaching.

In this case, I think of teaching as a bit like cooking.

A true cook (master teacher) has the expertise to work from available ingredients, create a recipe, adjust the recipe to a different number of servings,  combine it into a broader menu of compatible offerings, adapt for possible food allergies, set the table, and time all the food so it arrives at just the right time to be eaten piping hot or refreshingly chilled. The learning meal then takes on a life of its own through conversation and involvement of everyone around the table– and facilitated by the food prep. If he/she is  smart, the master chef will include students in the food prep for a broader, richer menu. An experienced, tech-savvy teacher integrates technology the same way, using what is available at just the right time to bring every student around the learning table together. If a T2B is lucky enough to be souschef with a master, he/she will at least learn the fundamentals of collecting ingredients and managing simple menu planning. He/she will not learn every utensil or technique, but he/she will be able to serve up a shared learning meal.  The students may even try some foods they would have otherwise avoided when not included in the menu prep.

One problem with teacher ed is that the time limitations and inequities among the kitchen (student teaching) experiences and facilities make consistency very unlikely. We cannot assume that the cooperating teacher or student teaching school will even have essential technology ingredients or expertise. Some will have state of the art appliances and 1:1 computing, while others will have the edtech equivalent of one microwave oven to feed a class of 30… with past-date groceries. To  make it worse, the T2B may arrive having experienced teacher ed faculty who themselves use edtech solely as a drive-through meal: something you grab and go — without looking at the nutritional value!

To steer today’s T2B beyond the drive-through toward solid nutrition in their use of edtech as part of total menu planning, we need to deliberately take them out to “eat” in a variety of schools. We cannot assume that today’s T2B have ever even tasted this food before. Let them taste-test the marvelous things you can do by starting with a simple menu item, let’s say telling a simple digital story. After tasting it, let them try cooking up one of their own–even if it’s a little too crispy around the edges. Then ask them to envision a full menu where it might fit. Show them sample menus.  They may be tempted to simply re-create the comfort food lessons they had over and over as a child. Give them some nutritionally sound starting points they may never have savored.

I recently read a strategic analysis  of the teaching profession (see page 8 re classroom teachers) that described a “divide” between younger teachers entering the profession and old-time union-placard-wielding teachers. Historically, teachers have certainly been as guilty of them vs. us as fifth graders picking teams on the playground. On a bad day, a  teacher might have a parents them, a policy makers them, and/or a media them. But I really do not believe that there is a “divide” between younger and older teachers enough to be a them vs. us. What I do see is a growing isolation built out of self-preservation. As good old Maslow said, we have a hierarchy of needs, and personal security/safety come far before respecting others. Today’s fiscally risky climate builds fear in any teacher’s heart. And some teachers, fearful that they will fall prey to the budget axe, may speak out loud in broad generalizations about a teacher them. As teachers who know the veracity of good ol’ Maslow, we should have the wisdom to hear insecurity speaking when we hear it. We should also be able to point it out as insecurity when speaking to the media them.

But beyond the PR side of this, I want to dig deeper into this purported “divide.” As a teacher who cut my teaching teeth on purple-ditto-fluid-sniffing eighth graders, I am old enough to be on the old age end of this supposed “divide.” Yet why do I find I enjoy working with young teachers– and they with me? Why am I energized by their enthusiasm and are they eager to ask for my suggestions and experiences with this kind of student or that kind of parent or this difficult curriculum area. They even ask for my ideas for maximizing learning using technology. AGE and/or experience do not create a them. I don’t think of myself as “old,” nor do they treat me that way.When among teaching colleagues, I feel we are ageless. Only the moments when they refer to their high school years remind me that we are a generation apart.  As teachers, we are absolutely together. I do not fear that they talk about me behind my back, as “divided” teachers surely would. We are in this together. For the kids.

As politics and financial crises continue to take their toll and send us back to primal levels on Maslow’s hierarchy,  I hope the community of the teaching profession can avoid being split into them and us by changes to pensions, certifications, salaries, and all the other personally threatening safety/security changes that loom. Our kids cannot afford to go to school in a “divided” world of teaching and learning. Anyone who seeks to promote that divide is doing far more damage than a group of fifth graders choosing sides. We teachers — older, younger, and ageless– need to think about how we work together and take advantage of each other’s wisdom, just as we ask our students to do.

Watch a frozen lake evolve through a late winter thaw. The brittle surface, clouded and frozen, thins irregularly and gradually as it dulls in the sun. Pools of water form on top.  The edges pull away from the shore, setting vast sheets afloat. Progress accelerates. The wind rises, pushing water over one edge of the sheet from here to the far side of the lake, wearing away the windward edge, lapping atop,  and refreezing into briefly sparkling formations. Decorated with the diamond necklace of refrozen splash, the sheet backs away downwind. It retracts from all its other sides, shrinking as it slides backward. Ten yards, thirty yards, fifty, all in an hour. The seagulls ride along. Somewhere before it reaches the rear shoreline, it may disappear entirely as the water devours it. But if the sun gives out too soon or the temperature drops, the sparkling necklace refreezes at ice’s edge,  and the sheet holds its place, immobile and unconvinced that thawing is a  good idea.

Watching students– or my fellow teachers– learn is like watching the thaw. I cannot control the sun or the wind, and I am amazed at how quickly the process passes by. I appreciate that no two thaw cycles occur the same way. I especially love watching that edge where water and ice meet, the places where understanding laps at rigidity and forms beautiful but temporary diamonds. And I never know exactly when the water will flow unimpeded. The wind, the temperature, and even rain can change the scene in just minutes. Or it can stay stuck for days.

I wonder whether ice wants to thaw or whether water relishes washing in the newness of spring until the ice concedes to join it. Either way, I really can do no more than observe the conditions and maybe poke a stick at the ice as it flows past my shoreline. Teaching is not about controlling; it is about appreciating, observing, and noticing how the learning works. And maybe once in awhile taking to the ice of misunderstanding on skates to find its edges.

Visit any place: a town, a school, a neighborhood, a college campus, even a restroom, and you will see telltale signs of the culture that lives there in the details that surround you. The trick is noticing. Here are images of details some may or may not notice when traveling in China. Each gives rise to some possible revelations about China– and raises some questions to ask about the culture in the place you call home.

This lady was carefully dusting every opening of a rooftop railing inside a garden in Shanghai. As tourists and other visitors walked beneath her, she continued cleaning. I immediately thought of the people we had seen sweeping the side of major highways with brooms. What might this possibly say about China’s employment or interest in cleanliness or care of public areas? What would I see on an equivalent place where you live?

I know I have possibly said too much about”western” and traditional (squat style) toilets in China. This sign was on the door to one stall where there was a western, seated style toilet. What does it tell you?

The library at the village school we visited had these books on the shelves.  All the bookshelves were arranged in single layer displays of books like this. What can you tell about the school and the library? What would we learn from looking at the details of your school or town library?

Speaking of libraries, in the brand new private school we visited in Shanghai, I saw students taking off their shoes to enter the school library. They lined them up neatly under the bench outside the library door, then went in. What might this say about libraries, shoes, or…? For what places do you take your shoes off?

In the ancient and older buildings of the Forbidden City, a Buddhist temple in Xi’an, and the beautiful garden home (now museum) of an affluent Shanghai family, we saw elevated door sills that our guide said were designed to keep the evil spirits out. You have to step up over every door sill that goes to the outdoors. What do architectural features —  even in non-religious buildings– reveal about the beliefs of people? What architectural features are common in your town’s buildings, and why are they there?

This photo from the Forbidden City shows another architectural feature we saw in many, many,  places in China. Can you find out what these rooftop animals mean? Do you have any decorations that have meaning on the buildings in your city or country?

Right outside the Forbidden City is Ti’ananmen Square. This light pole has more than lights. What else do you see? Why is it there? What would we see on the utility poles in public areas where you live —-and why?

The necessities of everyday life take up time and effort in every culture. What does this street photo tell you about the people of Shanghai? Actually, we saw this in every city. How do people where you live handle the same tasks? (Please pardon the blurriness. This was taken through a bus window.)

Play is important for children everywhere. This little boy had one rollerblade while his sister wore the other. They were playing outside the front door of their village home during the two hour break when children went home from school for lunch. What does this tell you about Chinese village children? If we watched children play in your neighborhood, what would we learn?

In the same small village, we saw this sign. What does it say about what is important there? What would we see in road signs (even on roads like this with few cars) where you live — and why?

Ceremonies and dances appear n every culture. This reenactment of a dance celebration from the Tang Dynasty was even more breathtaking when “stopped” by the camera. What ceremonies and rituals would strangers to your home find striking or surprising? Why do these ceremonies continue?

People say, “You are what you eat,” and one of the first thing everyone asks about my visit to China is about the food. This street stall in the middle of a Beijing neighborhood was well-stocked on a chilly December afternoon. What kind of food would visitors see for sale where you live, and where would they have to go to find it? What does that say about the economy and transportation systems where you live?

If we are what we eat, what would people say about you? These dumplings held mysterious contents, prompting us to ask “what’s inside?” before we tried them. What foods would visitors ask about when they visited your home?

Sometimes looking at the details reveals more questions than answers, but guessing and hypothesizing about culture from the outside details is as delightful as biting into it — and you discover some good stuff.